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Leaves of Grass (1860)
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18.
| Me standing at ease in Nature, |
Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the
midst of irrational things,
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| Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they, |
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles,
crimes, less important than I thought;
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Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all
these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with
the best—I am not subordinate;)
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Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta,
or the Tennessee, or far north, or inland,
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A river-man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-
life of These States, or of the coast, or the lakes,
or Kanada,
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Me, wherever my life is to be lived, O to be self-bal-
anced for contingencies!
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O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, acci-
dents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
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